‘Does it matter? Even if it’s true that he’s Carter’s father, that he wants to be involved in his life, he doesn’t get to automatically have what he wants. He has to prove it. And while he’s doing that, we get a chance to prove our case. I’m the guardian Samantha chose to look after her little boy, body, mind and spirit. She didn’t even put the father down on the birth certificate, so it’s obvious she didn’t want him involved in Carter’s life for some reason. A court can’t overlook that. They also can’t overlook what Carter wants—and he wants us. And while we might not be his blood kin, we are family. We have looked after him, loved him, have created a stable environment for him and he’s thrived. I’m his mother. That’s what he calls me and that’s what I am. And I will fight the fight of my life to prove to anyone who questions the relevance of that just how wrong they are. I am not giving up without a fight and neither are you and if there’s anything I learned from you and Mum when we were all together, when the Brennans put their minds to something, nothing can stand against them.’
Diarmuid’s face broke into the biggest grin, a grin she remembered seeing so often before their family had been broken apart by her mother’s death and life had been more. She wanted that more. She deserved that more. And nobody was going to take it away from her.
Her papa pulled her into a hug, then pulled away to grip her face, kissing her forehead just like he’d done when she was little. ‘That’s my aingeal,’ he said, dimples digging deep rivets into his face. The dimples she’d inherited from him. ‘You’ve got the fighting spirit of your mother, you know that?’
No. She hadn’t known that, but now she did, it seemed right. Like her mother was here with her and always had been. ‘Thanks, Papa.’
‘No. Thank you. I came here so worried about you, thinking all this was going to make you fall apart. But you are a rock, just like your mother. She kept me steady all those years and I thought maybe, you were more like me than you were like her, especially given some of the choices you’ve made. But now I see you are just like she was, and I couldn’t be prouder.’
‘Papa,’ she said, eyes hot with tears as he pulled her into a hug. She gripped him tightly, wanting to show him how much his words meant to her.
Finally, she pulled back and kissed his cheek. Her heart was so full and there was so much more to say and discuss, but the only words that came out of her mouth were, ‘I’ve got to call Chandra.’
‘Why? What’s he got to do with this?’
‘Everything. Nothing. Everything.’ She laughed at his expression. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not making sense. It’s just that what you said, it suddenly gave me an epiphany about you and Mum and the life you had together and the false impression I’ve had of that all these years and how that impression has held me back so much and made me make some really stupid choices. Like Chandra. I should never have married him.’
‘Finally!’ Diarmuid clapped his hands together then waved them when he noticed her stunned expression. ‘Not that I’ve got anything against the boy, he is a lovely bloke, but I never understood why you knowingly married a gay man. I didn’t want to say anything, although it was hard when his boyfriend moved in with you, and you spent even more time away in those dangerous places and he didn’t go with you. But your aunt thought it best to just let you deal with it your way.’
‘You knew? She knew?’
He gave her a look that made her chuckle. Of course he did. She was stupid to think he wouldn’t have seen what Chandra’s family were so oblivious to. But that her Taaii Ameera had known! It was … she shook her head. She’d been so wrong. So horribly wrong. She had some amend-making to do, obviously. But it would have to wait until after she’d dealt with everything else going on in her life at the moment.
‘So what did I say that made you have your epiphany?’
‘What? Oh. Nothing and everything. I’ve been so muddle headed, thinking I needed to be one way when all I was doing was fighting myself.’ She slapped her palm against her forehead. ‘How could I have been so stupid?’
‘We all do stupid things not to face reality. Or to make reality fit how we think it should be.’
‘Yes. Yes.’ She gripped his arms and shook them up and down. ‘That’s it exactly.’ She let go and spun around, almost losing her balance, but he caught her, laughing with her. ‘I’ve got to go and tell Flynn.’
‘Tell me what?’
She spun around and looked into the eyes of the man she knew she loved with every part of her being and realised suddenly she couldn’t tell him a thing.
Chapter 23
‘Grumpy!’ Carter shouted as he flew in the door behind Flynn—followed by Aaron and Tilly—and then launched himself into Diarmuid’s strong embrace.
‘Carts, how I’ve missed you, lad.’ Diarmuid spun him around, making Carter squawk with laughter.
Prita wanted to hug both of them in relief that she’d been saved from telling Flynn something he might not be ready to hear. She was so close to having the happiness she never thought would be hers, but only if she could get him on board with that—and now, in the middle of the danger she was in, wasn’t the time. Was it?
Her gaze slipped from the ecstatic reunion to the man who had come to fill gaps in her life she hadn’t even known were there, let alone needed
